People use electronic devices to access a wealth of information. Many electronic devices include a display to enable a user to view information, select menus, input data, and interact with other data. The devices may include a navigation controller to allow users to operate the devices. For example, navigation controllers may include one or more of a keyboard, a mouse, a direction pad (d-pad), a touch screen, a joystick, a trackball, or other input control features to enable a user to navigate through information presented on the display.
A direction pad is just one example of a navigation controller that includes axes of two-dimensional space (having components of up, down, left, and right) and optionally including a selection control. A keyboard may use at least four separate buttons where each button is dedicated to one of the components of up, down, left, and right. In some instances, a direction pad may use a single feature (e.g., pad) that enables user selection of each direction commands depending on where the user touches the direction pad. For example, a depression of a top portion of the pad may translate to an ‘up’ selection while a center depression may be used to activate a selection control.
Display interfaces, such as websites, often include interactive objects that users may select, use to transmit information, or otherwise interact with to create a desired outcome. For example, a graphical user interface (GUI) may include a text box for entering text, a virtual button to submit a command, radial buttons to toggle response options, and so forth. Each of these objects may be selected and then manipulated by user input to create a desired outcome. When the user navigates the display interface using a navigational controller, the user is typically confined to having an object focus move between objects based on a preset sequential order (e.g., tab order). The object focus refers to a selected object that the user currently can manipulate (e.g., an active object ready for user input). Often, the preset sequential order is based on a container order of the objects as listed in the underlying computer program code. This makes navigation of the display interface with a navigational controller confusing and difficult for a user at times.
In some instances, developers may modify an object focus routine by assigning object focus from each object. However, this requires additional work by the developers and is specific to a single implementation. In addition, the assignment may still confuse the user to moving between objects in a confusing path.